must be insufficient, if not hopeless. To succeed thus, as I have
already said, precept must become more powerful than example. Commit the
work of converting the world to your children, and they will commit it
to your grandchildren. Try instruction in the nursery, try instruction
in the Sabbath-school, try instruction from the pulpit: it will fall
powerless as a ray of moonlight on a lake of ice, while contradicted by
the _example_ of mothers, of Sabbath-school teachers, and of ministers.
Urge young men into the missionary field without going yourselves? A
general might as well urge his army over the Alps without leading them.
Consecrate them to the work? Would it not be an unholy consecration--a
consecration at the hands of those who were not themselves consecrated?
The command does not say, _send_, but "Go." Let us then go, and urge
others to _come_. We shall find this mode of persuasion the most
effectual.

Let us commit to proxy that work which is pleasant and easy, and betake
ourselves in person to those kinds of labor that are more self-denying,
and to those posts that are likely to be deserted. This is the only
principle of action that will secure success in any enterprise within
the range of human efforts. Suppose the opposite principle is acted
upon--that every one seeks for himself the most easy and pleasant work,
and the most delightful and honorable station, and leaves for others the
most obscure, the most self-denying, and the most perilous. Discover
such a spirit in any enterprise, secular or religious, and it requires
not the gift of prophecy to predict a failure. Practical and business
men understand full well the truth and force of this remark. The true
method is this: if there is a work that is likely to be neglected on
account of its obscurity or self-denial, let every one, first of all,
see that _that_ service is attended to. And if there is a post likely to
be left deserted on account of its hardships or its perils, let every
one be sure, first of all, that _that_ post is occupied. Let there be an
emulation among all to do the drudgery of the service, and to man the
Thermopylae of danger. Then you shall read in the vigor and nerve of the
action the certainty of success.

In this way Bonaparte conquered Europe. If a portion of his army was
likely to fall back, there the general pressed forward in person,
inspiring courage and firmness. If all others shrunk from the deadly
breach, thither he rushed,